a light-hearted recollection of the everyday, one scribble at a time….

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“You Are Going To Africa!”

In a very passionate discussion around activity prioritization, my son, Owen made a rather bold declaration.”MOM! You are going to Africa to be with those crocodiles!” You see, when lagging in the negotiation process, let’s say, to skip a nap or leverage a park date, he gets a bit hostile. He makes very audacious assertions; usually ones that relegate me to the jaws of some ferocious beast he saw on animal planet. Today, quite frustrated that we were not going to Family Fun Center, he lashed out. Or, so I thought.

Yikes. Crocodiles. For a moment, I felt the need to swoop in with stern parenting prowess and discuss the reasons why we should not offer up the one who birthed us to wild animals. For a moment I wanted to sort out the details of his frustration, reminding him that an agitated and disrespectful tone would only land him in a swamp of misfortune. I was preparing a watered down version of the CASCADE coaching model, when suddenly, my delivery was interrupted by the realization that Owen had not meant harm. In actuality, he is BRILLIANT and he was only giving voice to the obvious:

All at once, my angst and disenchantment with the expressive 5-year-old was erased by the reality that he identifies fashion trends and knows how to put them in conversational context. He wasn’t angry at all. He was only giving a nod to the exquisite tribal theme he observed.

How savvy. How bright! For to acknowledge and praise mommy’s outfit, would prove to give up the upper hand in our debate. Wow. For this, he won negotiations on an additional episode of animal planet. And yes, baby…I’m going to Africa.